


a little discourage

by warfare



Category: Harry Potter.
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-16
Updated: 2010-07-16
Packaged: 2017-10-19 04:44:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/197040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/warfare/pseuds/warfare
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>in which a number of people are kicked in the back of the head, lily surprises sirius, and not a whole lot happens.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a little discourage

**Author's Note:**

> I can't decide if it's gen or Sirius/Remus. To be fair, it could be either. Like all of my fanfiction, nothing happens and everyone is sad about it. Originally this was meant to be [](http://derogatory.livejournal.com/profile)[**derogatory**](http://derogatory.livejournal.com/)'s birthday fic, and it was totally fueled by [](http://partaken.livejournal.com/profile)[**partaken**](http://partaken.livejournal.com/)'s [Sirius/Remus FST](http://8tracks.com/katsura/dog-days-are-over). This is only half of my text file, but I wanted to get at least this much off my hard drive and out of my life. This is actually the first Harry Potter fanfic I have ever finished. Unbelievable.

After they're finished with their NEWTs, the Marauders have always planned, they're going to skip out on the feast in the Great Hall, take their dinners out to the outskirts of the forbidden forest and celebrate under the moon. As the times get more and more dangerous and as it becomes clear to them with age and experience what a fantastically bad idea it is, they of course all become increasingly attached to it, and the plan begins to expand. Sirius observes that if they're lucky it'll be a full moon, to which Remus always retorts that that sort of thing is written in _almanacs_ , thank-you-very-much. He doesn't mention that the first time in first year James'd brought the whole scheme up he'd spent the next several hours in the library pouring over almanacs in an attempt to convince himself that nothing could possibly go wrong.

As NEWTs get closer and closer, Remus finds himself feeling conflicted; if one assumes that he has a future after Hogwarts beyond social pariah-hood, the full moon represents a stumbling block to getting all Os, time lost that cannot be returned. If one accepts the truth of the matter, he supposes, these are the last few full moons they'll be guaranteed together. Eventually he finds a happy balance between them, obsessively checks the date of the feast in the almanac and sleeps in the recovery room with his Charms text in his lap and a dog at his feet (James slips in during visiting hours, of course, but Dumbledore's confiscated his invisibility cloak for a while following an unexplained incident in the ladies' washroom, and for some reason it is difficult for anything about an almost fully-grown stag in the hospital wing to be stealthy or discreet after-hours).

Once, and only once, Sirius accidentally shifts back into human form in the middle of the night. They’re awakened in the morning by Madam Pomfrey, who walks in, sees two sleeping teenaged boys in pajamas curled up on opposite ends of the bed. When she shakes Remus awake he stares horrified back and forth between her and Sirius, who thankfully is clothed but who is grinning in his sleep in a self-satisfied way that looks to Remus’ hormone and academic anxiety-fried brain like an expression of absolute blissful fulfillment.

For one horrible second Remus is sure he’s either going to be expelled or else seated down and given a stern life choices talk by Professor McGonagall, Professor Dumbledore, and Madam Pomfrey – honestly, he can’t decide which option would be more horrifying to him. But she just shakes her head and thins her lips, tells him to tell Mr. Black when he wakes up that students are not allowed in the hospital wing after hours. When she leaves, Remus lets out a long breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding in. Sirius takes this moment to roll over from his side to his back, stretching his long legs up and over the headboard and forcing his friend to duck.

“At least she didn’t check your stitches to see if you’d reopened them in the night,” Sirius notes, and Remus hates how his face burns in spite of himself at the insinuation. He’s grateful that at least his friend can’t catch him being embarrassed until, like magic, Sirius cracks one eye open, sees how his observation has landed, and then laughs in a way that telegraphs _I knew it._

“Should have known you’d changed back.” Remus gripes at him in a way that clearly sounds like he’s sure it was on purpose. “Since when do dogs kick people in the face in the middle of the night.”

“You’ve never complained any other full moon,” Sirius retorts, and Remus has to admit to himself that it’s impossible to stay angry with him for any real period of time; any genuine frustration he feels rolls off with his friend’s laughter. Instead, he shoves the other boy’s legs off of the headboard, smiles his own self-satisfied smile as the rest of his friend’s body follows in turn, crashing to the floor. As Sirius reaches up and pulls both his friend and the cot crashing down with him, Remus can’t help noting that one way or another, it looks like Sirius Black’ll be ripping his stitches open after all.

\---

Two months later to the day, Remus trods back toward Gryffindor Tower from his post-wolf checkup in the hospital wing, marveling at how little he's been feeling the aftereffects of the moon recently. Perhaps it's that he's gotten better at controlling himself, but he figures it's more likely that Sirius and James have just figured a happy medium between letting the wolf do whatever it pleases and throwing him halfway across the Forbidden Forest every time his hackles so much as rise.

Sirius and Peter are lazing about the common room when he gets back; they perk up briefly when they hear the entrance open, but return to staring at each other dejectedly from across the table once they confirm that it's just him. James, Remus determines wryly, must be on patrol with Evans. Never one to sail against the wind, Remus takes out a book and stations himself on the couch with a clear view of the entrance. He notes with a smile that this whole situation is not unlike dogs lying in front of the front door waiting for their master to come home, an observation which makes Peter blush and Sirius bristle. Remus hums into his Defense Against the Dark Arts text, at least until Sirius kicks him in the back of the head.

His friend must actually be kind of angry, because he spends the rest of the week playing minor pranks on Remus. There's never any proof, of course, that he's the culprit; just the way a smile dances just around the corner of his eyes as the other Marauders express their shock and horror at [his notes being changed to erotic poetry / his being secretly hexed to only be able to pose all statements in question form / all of his clothes being charmed to smell like wet dog (Remus isn’t convinced Sirius didn’t just accomplish that last one by taking a shower and rolling around in Remus’ trunk) ], not to mention the combination of relative harmlessness of the pranks and the complete creative obnoxiousness of them. James blames Severus Snape again.

\---

It's three days until his last exam and Remus has been in the back of the library for at least four hours; he's got a cramp in his neck that started at least a half hour ago and the shoulder he dislocated in third year is radiating a dull ache for some reason or another. He doesn't hear anyone come up behind him, just feels the presence of someone closing in on his back, hand hovering near a shoulder, and hears Sirius start,

"Hey, Lu--"

Lupin's mouth twists upward, partially with the frustration of at least four failed attempts at revenge and partially with sleep deprivation induced mania, and without a word he jerks his chair backward, catching the person behind him sharply in the stomach before toppling over himself, chair and boy both landing squarely on top of his target. His triumphant grin at the success of his kamikaze attack melts into an expression of dismay and horror, however, when he hears glasses clatter to the floor and realizes he is currently straddling James. Sirius is leaning on the doorjamb, doubled over and shaking with silent laughter.

"Can't." Sirius manages to choke out around smothered guffaws, "Manage to keep your paws off him, huh Moony." Remus allows himself a split second of fantasizing about grabbing his friend by the scruff of the neck and throwing him into the nearest stack of books - these homicidal urges are not residual from the last full moon and therefore undeniable symptoms of his condition, he assures himself, if those urges are completely founded.

James makes excuses for both of them as Remus scrambles off, then pulls him up; it's near the full moon, after all, and what with NEWTs and all, those animal instincts must be running on high - Remus doesn't feel the need to correct him; after all, all of those sound better than his real reasons for owing Sirius a good kick in the teeth.

They've met Peter coming out of a last-minute herbology tutorial and are halfway to the Gryffindor common room when James interjects,

"By the way, about the feast in a couple of days," he looks embarrassed, an expression that Remus notes with the tiniest shred of dark amusement always seems to make Sirius' face sink with disgust, "I know we've been planning on skivving for years and all, but. That's our final night here, isn't it? Shouldn't we--"

He can't even finish his sentence before Sirius starts in on him, and Peter - although vocally agreeing that skipping out to the Forbidden Forest is a stupid kid's idea anyway - can't manage to keep the heartbreak out of the edges of his voice. Remus keeps silent through the argument, watching the way James' face is turning a little pink around the ears in that way it always does when he's thinking about a certain prefect-cum-Head Girl before finally interjecting,

"D'you want to see if she wants to come with, Prongs?"

Years of trying to gauge his friends' reactions, see if he's gone too far and should backpedal or apologize or pass whatever he's said as a joke, have given Remus something of a taste for reading others' expressions, and the change in everyone's demeanor this time around is really interesting, he thinks offhandedly; James' expression clears, Peter's switches from conflict to single-minded horror, and Sirius blinks twice at him before grinning broadly, smile sharp with an unspoken victory. James crosses the distance between the two of them in two long strides, grins a meter wide, and throws an arm over Remus' shoulders. Remus can't decide whether it'd be more appropriate to lean away uncomfortably or to lean in and shrug him off, so he allows himself a moment and basks in the attention.

Later, after James has gone to bed, Sirius finds Remus in the common room in front of the fire with a book, laughs at him, "So, Moondoggy, do you actually think Lily 'Never Broken a Rule in her Life' Evans is going to come with, or have I underestimated your capacity for deceiving James?"

"My kind," Lupin skirts around the word "werewolf" even now; it aches in the way an old scar does, shiny and pink but still perpetually raw and sensitive, "are liars by necessity. Besides," he shoots Sirius a sideways glance, still a little sore from earlier in the day, "Isn't it possible that the one you're underestimating is Lily Evans?"

Sirius makes a rude noise and doesn't deign to acknowledge his friend's question beyond that.

\---

Remus can't help feeling smug on the night of the Great Hall Feast, as Sirius trudges sullenly behind the group. Lily's giddy and flushed with excitement, and she and James pull ahead of everyone else, skirting and orbiting around each other, never quite managing to meet halfway. Peter shuffles as quickly as possible to keep up, and the misery on the edges of his eyes is the only thing Remus feels any regret about (later, he makes a note, he'll have to remind James to let Pete know there's no one he likes better than them). Lily's voice, although hushed, is high with excitement; it's the most girlish he's heard her in a long time, he thinks.

For a teenaged werewolf, Lupin is quick to forgive and even quicker to regret hurting others, and so he drags his feet and makes Sirius catch up with him, admits grimly,

“Yeah, this is a bit of a letdown.”

His friend looks at him with a disgusted expression, but it quickly melts into a resigned smirk. Remus figures it must be terribly hard on Sirius, always being right. “I’ve seen worse,” Sirius says, and the space between them is warm as they watch James and Lily melt further and further into the distance.

Suddenly, as if on cue, Lily turns, looks back at both of them, and waves them closer. The two of them watch as Peter manages to catch up, bending over to catch his breath. James rubs small circles on their friend’s lower back, brays encouragement that the two boys can’t hear from this distance. Watching their three housemates grin and shout and wave soundlessly, Remus can’t help cracking a smile in turn. Sirius snorts, places a warm hand on the back of Remus’ head and shoves him toward their friends. The two boys break out in a run, racing, heading toward the forest, toward James and Peter and Lily, toward the waning moon.


End file.
